Carrey’s Disciple

Lerman, the Los Angeles–born-and-raised star of the upcoming should-be blockbuster The Lightning Thief, directed by Chris Columbus (of Home Alone and Harry Potter fame), has worked with a few of the biggest leading men in Hollywood, including Jim Carrey, Christian Bale, Russell Crowe, and Mel Gibson. “I’ve been so fortunate to be able to work with these people I admire so much,” he says. “I was about 12 or 13, and I was on this television show, and I found out that Jim Carrey was working on this film called Number 23, and I was like, ‘I have to be part of this!’ I really wanted to learn from him. I was horrible back then. He knew I was a huge fan of his and he would talk to me and, you know, tell me about his experiences on movies like Man on the Moon and all this background information on stuff he went through. I watched him and studied him a lot, and I learned a lot from him on how to embody a character and get into a scene and the lengths you can go to feel comfortable. So, once I came around to working with Christian Bale [on 3:10 to Yuma], I just kind of did my own thing. I looked at our relationship and realized we were supposed to be distant from each other. I didn’t really want to talk to him during the whole filmmaking process. I wanted that awkwardness to pay off, I tried not to get too close to him. But I talked to Russell a lot, because he was supposed to be the guy I looked up to.”